Formal Informal AssessmentBy now, you should have assigned and graded several informal assessments. How have you been using the results of these assessments to improve how you teach and what students learn? What strategies has your CT suggested for providing students with guidance before they do the assignment to improve their performance? What about after the assignment?
The informal assesments have been used to guage what the student understands on a clas by class basis. I give a question of the day to the students that can reflect student content knowledge in an area of importance, and also as a way to get student opinion and interest areas. For instance, I recently asked them to give me 3 interesting things or questions they found on the geologic timeline. When I read the responses, some student sjust wrote down 3 words from the timeline, but most described things they thought were pretty cool. SOme had legitimate questions that were great for discussion. I was surprised by how much the students can input if they decide to do something. I was not expecting such answers, and they will provide me with an opportunity to discuss these questions in front of the class as a discussion topic.
My CT and I have discussed how we would like to use these informal assessments to guide our level of instruction, as tools for review, for some critical thinking, and by making connections to material. Usually, material asked about for the QOD was discussed in the previous class, and is a way for the students to activate their prior learning, and can be a way to review material before beginning the next class. It gives me the opportunity to examine a student's more personalized view of the material sometimes. Students know that this activity is about effort as much as it is about understanding a foundation of a concept, so there is minimal copying of work. Therefore every answer has some personality to it. It gives me an opportunity to examine and tweak my way of instructing. Some students will use an example I gave them in class that obviously hit home, so I can then use that example again later, and continue to build understanding in the future by providing more examples like those.
The informal assesments have been used to guage what the student understands on a clas by class basis. I give a question of the day to the students that can reflect student content knowledge in an area of importance, and also as a way to get student opinion and interest areas. For instance, I recently asked them to give me 3 interesting things or questions they found on the geologic timeline. When I read the responses, some student sjust wrote down 3 words from the timeline, but most described things they thought were pretty cool. SOme had legitimate questions that were great for discussion. I was surprised by how much the students can input if they decide to do something. I was not expecting such answers, and they will provide me with an opportunity to discuss these questions in front of the class as a discussion topic.
My CT and I have discussed how we would like to use these informal assessments to guide our level of instruction, as tools for review, for some critical thinking, and by making connections to material. Usually, material asked about for the QOD was discussed in the previous class, and is a way for the students to activate their prior learning, and can be a way to review material before beginning the next class. It gives me the opportunity to examine a student's more personalized view of the material sometimes. Students know that this activity is about effort as much as it is about understanding a foundation of a concept, so there is minimal copying of work. Therefore every answer has some personality to it. It gives me an opportunity to examine and tweak my way of instructing. Some students will use an example I gave them in class that obviously hit home, so I can then use that example again later, and continue to build understanding in the future by providing more examples like those.